“Did you get your new place yet or are you still in the war zone?”
SC
Thanks for your concern, SC. I am still living in the near ghetto, just over the YMZ [YoMammaZone] from the true ghetto, and still miles from the deep ghetto. But since my terminal physical decline began, I have basically gone from being an active pedestrian, walking the worst routes available and seeking out the skanky corners of this fetid compliance matrix, to becoming a reclusive hermit.
If I was once the Harm City Strider I am now old Bilbo skulking about Elrond’s palace delving into the elder lore of yore.
I have a number of historical and fiction projects I wish to complete. And, to tell the truth, with 20 Harm City books behind me, it’s not a priority to gather more unseemly information.
Note that when the possibility of a riot loomed last Wednesday, that I had no bus or pedestrian news for the readers. I paid someone gas money to drive me to work. Part of the reason is my lack of confidence in being able to defend myself without killing some sainted hoodrat.
My largest concern was, that I did not want to get immersed into a half dozen ghetto narratives that I would find myself duty bound to write about, because I was more interested in doing more serious writing.
I no longer go to the bar at night by myself.
I no longer purposefully patronize black businesses.
I no longer take midnight strolls in the ghetto just to see what is out there.
I promised Ishmael I’d come out to the Rockies to write Kettle of Bones, and Mescaline Franklin that I’d tour the ghettos of the upper East Coast for a study of comparative hoodrat environments—just have to much going on to seek the Urban Madness this winter.
It seems that the Harm City Mammagarchy has timed the second riot—we should have two—for this coming spring. When the big torch of urban ire goes “woosh,” I’ll venture out like a war correspondent. Until then, I might as well be Orson Scott Card writing at some Mormon Retreat…
I really glad you're not putting yourself at so much risk as you have before. It's a relief.